DEAR PEOPLE,--Whoever you are and wherever you may be when you take up
this book--I beg of you not to feel disturbed because I have let Fancy
and a faery or two slip in between the covers. You will find them
quite harmless and friendly--and very eager to become acquainted.

Furthermore, please do not search about for Saint Margaret's; it does
not exist. I shamelessly confess to the building of it myself, using
my right of authorship to bring a stone from this place, and a cornice
from that, to cap the foundation I discovered long ago--when I was a
child. In a like manner have I furnished its board of trustees. Do
not misjudge them; remember that when one is so careless as to let
Fancy and faeries into a book she is forced to let the stepmothers be
unkind and the giants cruel.

I should like to remind those who may be forgetting that Tir-na-n'Og is
the land of eternal youth and joyousness--the Celtic "Land of Heart's
Desire." It is a country which belongs to us all by right of natural
heritage; but we turned our backs to it and started journeying from it
almost the instant we stepped out of our cradles.

As for the primrose ring--reach across it to Bridget and let her give
you back again the heart of a child which you may have lost somewhere
along the road of Growing-Old-and-Wise.

R. S.

THE PRIMROSE RING